I’ve read the entire series 3 times through. In my opinion this is one of the most perfect series ever written. There is only one critique I have and it’s around Dumbledore. I don’t know what Rowlings source material was but Dumbledore is an odd God-like character. This guy can be in the middle of a battle with the most terrifying people of all time and Rowling will write “he deflected the Avada Kedavra spell calmly.” He stopped a gunman calmly, he averted a murder calmly. Who is this guy that’s calm ALL THE TIME? I don’t think I’m in the majority but Dumbledore doesn’t feel like a real person while every other character is almost perfect. She begins to deconstruct his character in book 6 but the deconstruction doesn’t align well with the idealized character she created in 1-5. Dumbledore (for me) is best when he’s referenced but not in the scene.
Am I crazy in this?
by IketheTike89
21 Comments
Yes, the authorities have been notified of your heresy.
Seriously though, it’s good to read a series and make note of what you think. That’s the point, and I think you’ll get interesting discussion from other people.
My theory is that he was perpetually high on something. 🙂 Maybe those candies he kept offering others had something extra in them.
Dumbledore is intelligent and experienced, and so therefore wise. One application of that wisdom is to not lose one’s head in tense situations, causing him to remain calm when less experienced characters might not.
You are not wrong to have an opinion lol. Completely valid to not like a character. Reddit gets spicy about Harry Potter though.
Personally, I like that Dumbledore is a simple calm and collected. Part of his character is that he’s largely unfazed by most things. Which is why its so jarring when in the 4th movie he’s like HARRYDIDYOUPUTYOURNAMEINTHEGOBLETOFFIYA?!!? Like chill.
Maybe it’s a lack of caring in a sense. Concerning the fact that he basically killed his little sister and had to kill the person he loved, maybe nothing just phases him much anymore. Apathy?
I think it works perfectly
He is idealized for the beginning because he is a supremely OP dude shrouded in mysteries and we are following the perspective of a child who can care less about his past..
We start seeing shades of grey as we grow up.
As for the first point this guy has the most OP weapon in history, 100+ years life experience and magical knowledge enough to do just about anything. Being calm is just second nature to him now.
1. Dumbledore’s prime personality trait is being unruffled. He’s seen all kinds of crazy stuff, and it seems to not phase him (externally, at least).
2. I suspect he intentionally keeps a tight lid on his emotions, since his sister was killed in the crossfire when he and Aberforth had their falling out over Albus’s relationship with Grindelwald. If you felt like losing your cool directly caused someone’s death, especially your treasured sister, you would make sure to keep that from happening again.
3. It’s also worth noting that Harry is a slightly unreliable narrator. Harry idolizes Dumbledore, so he naturally mentally minimizes Dumbledore’s flaws and notices his strengths.
combined energy of both a teacher and old man that is phased by nothing anymore
Kinda unrelated to your beef with Dumbledore but something that kind of always bothered me was why he kept Harry out of the loop on things for so long. I guess I could see he was trying to preserve his childhood but especially toward the end when he knew his death was coming it would have been a good time to give Harry the low down on horcruxes and Snape being on the good side. It’s been awhile since I read the books so I could be talking out of my ass here but I just remember feeling frustrated that Dumbledore didn’t tell Harry everything before he died since he’d no longer be there to guide Harry.
I think that’s pretty much what Rowling intended for Dumbledore- *deus ex machina* in the flesh, or perhaps the alchemical unity (or tripartite, if you include Fawkes) is a better term- alchemical references are throughout- as a convenient plot device.
Also to function as Harry’s superego (or at least a prompt for its development).
Though as we discovered, he’s far from omnipotent.
No. I don’t like Dumbledore and never really have. I get that he’s supposed to be a morally grey character making hard decisions during hard times, but he just comes across as holier than thou and he crosses lines that should not be crossed while still considering a character to be a good person. It’s one thing to direct troop movements during wartime when those troops are adults making their own decisions and it’s totally another to be party to abusing a child (either by directly and knowingly allowing the abuse or by deliberately turning a blind eye) specifically so they’ll be so psychologically broken they barely blink at the prospect of essentially committing suicide. He’s better than Voldemort, but only barely.
Bottom Line Up Front: Dumbledore is intentionally written to be awe-inspiring but less relatable and less admirable the more you learn of him. In my opinion, the HP and Wizarding World stories could both be interpreted as little more than the results of the battle between his natural prideful nature and his kindness and empathy, which he had to learn from the disastrous mistakes he’s made.
I think the idea with Dumbledore is that he’s a genius and magical prodigy who’s character weaknesses are related to his interpersonal relationships and his pride. Although he’s shown to be warm and cordial to people in almost all cases, he actually walls himself off from everyone as punishment for his past mistakes which were disastrous as they destroyed his family and led to the rise of both of the last two dark lords. Isolating himself and leading the resistance behind the scenes are his self-imposed penance. Despite all the good he does and tries to do, he does not view himself as worthy of love on a personal level.
Many HP fans prefer Sir Richard Harris’s portrayal of Dumbledore for being closer to how he was described in the books. While that is true, I think that Sir Harris’s Dumbledore is representative of how a very young Harry would have viewed him – perfect, wise, saintly – whereas Sir Gambon’s interpretation was excellent for showing Dumbledore as the complex individual that he actually was – still wise and kind but also guilt-ridden, secretive, and constantly at war with his own pride. This is a man who knows with a certainty that he is far cleverer than everyone around him at all times, and that this makes him dangerous to everyone.
I think if you look at it that way, it might make more sense that he will not ever be portrayed as flustered or disadvantaged in any situation relating to magic, combat, teaching, or mentoring students. He has an enormous amount of experience due to his extended lifespan and natural aptitude, having already established himself as a master duelist, researcher, inventor, alchemist, strategist, and mentor.
Sigh. The last time Dumbledore let his feelings rule his actions, his baby sister died.
Elder Wand + Bad Ass Wizard = Chilling in the face of battle.
It happens sometimes when someone around you is too frustrated; somehow, it makes you calmer. That is mostly the case with Dumbledore; he is calm when everyone else is freaking out.
He does lose it when Dementors enters Hogwarts in the third book and cries when he talks with Harry at the end of the fifth book.
I’ll argue that this calm nature helps to set him apart from every other character. No one else seems to keep their cool at all points. It definitely helps in defining him.
I’ve kind of found that ‘[Action] calmly’ or ‘[Action] [Adverb]’ is perhaps something of a weakness in Rowling’s writing in the series. This is very much a me thing though.
I thought you wanted to write about how Dumbledore groomed Harry into sacrificing his life, through spoon feeding a small, vulnerable orphan child with a lies, half-lies and manipulations.
It’s fine, dumbledore just accidentally swallowed the Little Book of Calm
Iykyk
If you could see what was going to happen and know when you die, wouldn’t you be calm in a battle you knew you didn’t die in?
The dude basically was so all knowing that he saw all these events coming and in many ways, set them in motion so that they would arrive at the events that needed to happen. He was so talented and clever and aware of the nature of people that he could know who truly to trust and how to save Harry in the end.
People who know what they are doing so instinctually as to almost have intuition are going to be calm in situations they know how to handle.
Doesn’t mean you have to like the character or be a fan of his – it’s just an explanation of how he’s calm when others aren’t.
he’s a gay dude written by a dum terf who gives a shit
If you’re looking for JKR to use more than one adjective per character, you’re going to be disappointed.